Suez Uk

A super day walking in the Peak District with the SUEZ UK management team - a time for reflection, exercise, mental wellness and camaraderie in the beautiful British countryside at #dovedale - the weather was kind, the banter appropriate and the views breathtaking #sorted

A real pleasure to host The Guardian Consumer Affairs Correspondent Sarah Marsh and her camera man at our SUEZ UK Landor Street MRF in Birmingham to see up close and personal the problem of #vaping A big thank you to Steve Daniels and his team for taking Sarah around the site, explaining how and why #vapes are appearing in mixed household recycling collections (which they shouldn't), how we capture them before they become a fire risk (the aluminium case is the trigger), and how we separate the aluminium casing from the battery to reduce the risk of any spontaneous fires on site! Just today we had segregated 100 or more vapes from our aluminium stream..... Waste site fires are the biggest problem facing the waste & resource sector right now, putting people's lives at risk, destroying quality materials that could be recycled and potentially ruining buildings and losing investment in the damaged assets ...... our sites are becoming harder to insure and the cost of protecting our sites and clearing up after fires is costing the sector over £1billion annually! It's time that producers and consumers start to play their role, and we discussed the need for #producerresponsibility or a #takeback or #depositreturn type system to target not only vapes but other items with embedded lithium-ion batteries - toothbrushes and some toys spring to mind! And we are calling on Government to get involved in designing a new way forward..... #DEFRA It seems that banning disposable vapes 9 months ago has done little to change things with vapes prevalent at our sites in both the recycling and residual waste streams & fires are on the up across industry sites year on year. Vapes are now bigger, batteries are larger and rechargeable but they are still priced as if disposable, so people bin them rather than taking them back to store or to a local recycling centre for treatment! We must all do better .... Last year SUEZ UK suffered from over 350 vape / battery initiated site fires and in 2026 we have already had 5 of our rubbish trucks on fire from battery related incidents! Our anlysis suggests that 80% of all our site fires, many of which we identify early and deal with, are related to vapes - this has to change! It's time for a well funded education and engagement campaign, sponsored by the vape manufacturers, the battery manufacturers and the waste industry to move the dial and fast! #collaboration